A member of the Iraqi forces fires a mortar against Kurdish peshmerga positions near the area of Fishkhabor, located on the Turkish and Syrian borders in the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region, on Oct. 26, 2017. Much of the territory had been under Kurdish control, but after the Kurdish government staged an independence referendum the Iraqi government staged a military campaign.
The Iraqi government launched military operations in Kirkuk province on Oct. 16 to reclaim key infrastructure and territory from Kurdish control. Motivated in part by the recent independence referendum held in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Baghdad has deployed the Iraqi security forces backed by select Shiite militias to reclaim stretches of disputed territory in Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salahuddin and Diyala provinces. Both Baghdad and Arbil have claimed these disputed territories, but Kurdish peshmerga and militia forces have effectively held them for the last few years — in some cases after having been seized from the Islamic State militant group. More clashes could break out in Fishkhabor, a critical connection point for Kurdish and Iraqi crude oil pipelines that Baghdad may be planning to seize, and in Rabia along the Iraq-Syria border.
